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Sleep duration declines in early adulthood until age 33, and then picks up again at age 53, according to the findings published in Nature Communications.

The study, involving 730,187 participants spread over 63 countries, revealed how sleep patterns change across the lifespan, and how they differ between countries.

Study participants were playing the Sea Hero Quest mobile game, a citizen science venture designed for neuroscience research, created by Deutsche Telekom in partnership with Alzheimer's Research UK, UCL, UEA and game developers Glitchers. Designed to aid Alzheimer's research by shedding light on differences in spatial navigational abilities, over four million people have played Sea Hero Quest, contributing to numerous studies across the project as a whole.

In addition to completing tasks testing navigational ability, anyone playing the game is asked to answer questions about demographic characteristics as well as other questions that can be useful to neuroscience research, such as on sleep patterns.

https://medicalxpress.com/news/2022-12-people-early-30s-50s.html

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Ages in which you're having young children and then ages when they grow up and move out

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... yeah I think this is actually just skewed by having children.

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34, I never sleep well.

My family has that same problem and it has been detrimental to our health. If you can work with a doctor to help you sleep, you probably should.

Been this way since my ex left and took my son (I get him on weekends). Going on 5 years.

The same thing happened to my brother. Ex-wife took his daughter, made his life miserable. He never slept well again and died in his sleep too young.

Getting good sleep is an investment in your health and future time spent with your child.

We have a great relationship now, but my brain changed when the house became empty. I am super happy and love everything about my life other than not having my son every day. That first year was very hard and the sleep issue continued even after I was fine. Hard to fall asleep and I never get good rest. Coincidentally I sleep great on the weekends when he is with me.

Isn’t it funny how men get less sleep as they get older which is tied to stress in some studies but women get more sleep and is proven to be happier I’m not saying that women make problems but……

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It would be interesting to replicate this with childless people, both single and married perhaps.

What an unsubstantiated reach.

Children. The great mystery is children. Before they are born, sleep. After they are born, less sleep. After they move out, more sleep. Mystery solved.

I'm childless and married and this is accurate. I used to be able to sleep a solid 8 hours and now I can barely get 6 most nights at 33

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I guess it depends. My kid tucked in at 9pm almost every night. I am knocked off by 10, up by 7.

I guess we got lucky. The 1st 2 years were rough, but the last 8 have been pretty good.

I'm 33 and I sleep like 8-9 hours a day. My wife would prefer 12, but she's willing to compromise.

No kids

It’s because of work culture

no children, 29 years old. I can fall asleep crazy fast but cannot sleep as long as i used to. I'd be shocked if i slept 7 hours a night

You think? Or the paper literally says > Such reductions in sleep to mid-life have previously been related to the demands of child-care and working life28. The increasing sleep reported after 53 years is likely related to a reduction in child-rearing responsibilities and alleviation of other factors driving the lower sleep in mid-life29,30.

36 and sleep is my favorite place to be. Take me away Calgon. Vacations? Traveling? Nah gimme like 18 hours to void out and I am in heaven.

Yeah but we’re not supposed to actually read the article. It’s a Reddit tradition.

Agreed, I sleep less because of kids, needing to do more work, and more life responsibilities. It's not by choice that I sleep less.

In case anyone thinks I've heard of that before and this reminds them to get involved or it's your first time hearing of the app and you want to unfortunately its not longer open access and you need invite codes for it

I’m the opposite, childless, I used to get by on 5 hours of sleep from 16-20ish, now at 26 I can’t operate without at least 10 hours

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Yeah it’s called having kids

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Well I surely can’t sleep at all, maybe three hours at best a day. And I’m under 40

It’s 3am where I am and my 8 month old is refusing to sleep anywhere but on my chest, so yeah I fed this.

Probably more to do with children. 53 year olds are still working.

Similar age. I sleep 7.5 hours a day but I work 9-5 Mon-fri. Before when I did random shifts I’d sleep 5 hours at night and random nap where ever I could get them. I think a set routine is the biggest thing that helped my sleep pattern, more than diet, exercise etc.

yeah, It's a TL;DR (Too Long ; Didn't Read)

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Does it consider who has children? Because that is a major influential factor

Also 29, no kids. Fall asleep just fine, but yeah -- same as you said. I don't stay asleep for as long.

I'm physically active, generally content with work, life and relationships. Around 27ish, I went from sleeping 6-9 hours a night to now around 5-7. Wake up with plenty of energy too. Clean diet, consistent sleep schedule, still a bit of a cigarette habit but nothing's come of it yet, no outlying medical anything. Definitely noticed not needing as much sleep.

I'm not sure it's only due to having kids as some are mentioning, but I'm sure that can be a contributing factor.

Because people have to work dude

You can't sleep 12 hours a day.

wel i got 6 years then to finally get to sleep im not to happy about that.

If you can’t sleep consider testing for sleep apnea. You don’t have to be overweight, even children have sleep apnea and skinny people too.

Not with me. In bed by 7:59pm every night and wake up til 6:30am.

Ok, but what's a TL;?

I'm a 30 yo alcoholic. Very recently stopped drinking. I always woke up at 3. Always. Sometimes I would wake up at 1 and stay awake til 3, sometimes it was 3 to 4, but I was always awake for 3. On my worst nights, I wouldn't ever go back to sleep, and man a drink sounds good right then. So... I don't know if we have the same problem, but I'd definitely be suspicious of alcohol.

Hang in there, when I quit drinking my sleep was terrible for a month or so, your body/brain s just trying to restore homeostasis. Stay active, eat right, water etc, etc. You'll be sleeping like a log in no time.